Petzval designs, soft-focus, pictorialist lenses… Whatever you wish for. Innovations from the middle of the 20th century and from the depths of the century before. Back then, glass was more glassy and brass was more brassy. Nobody cared about size or weight. Character and bokeh were what mattered, and there is plenty of both here. Leave your pixel-peeping obsession at home and prepare for the perfectly imperfect. These lenses don’t capture photographs. They paint them.
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Dallmeyer Serrac
Some lenses have a more mysterious past behind them than others. That's the case with this Serrac 360mm f5.6, which according to the crown stamped on the body was made for the RAF, or British Royal Air Force and was used for espionage and aerial photography during World War II.
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Schneider-Kreuznach Repro-Claron
This time we're talking about nothing less than the giant Schneider-Kreuznach Repro-Claron 610mm f9! Only a little over 400 pieces were made and it's especially big, heavy and radioactive. Radio... active? The WHAT?!
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Voigtländer Heliar
Welcome to the first episode of my series about old weird photo gadgets—something no one asked for, but I’m telling you anyway. And to kick things off, I’ll introduce none other than probably the most famous member of the Voigtländer family, whose name has endured to this day—Heliar.